Legible Cities: Transit, Streetscapes & Information for People

Public transit systems combine transportation networks and intensely used public spaces. The transit system also forms a continuum with a city’s sidewalks and other spaces as people on foot move between buses, trains, stations and the wider streetscape.

Please join us as we present Mike Rawlinson of City ID (Bristol, UK) and Wendy Feuer of NYC Dept of Transportation, two leaders uniquely qualified to discuss the state of the art in designing information for transit users, thinking about transit as public space and the continuum between public transit and the urban streetscape.

Transit requires a specialized organization and presentation of information to make transportation systems legible to the people who use them. These can be of uneven quality from city to city and even from station to station. Meanwhile transportation information provided on American city streets is overwhelmingly directed to people driving cars. But an increasing number of cities are developing pedestrian wayfinding systems to begin to redress this balance. The best wayfinding provides continuity between sidewalks, transit stations and other systems like bike paths.